Modification on Rental

It is harder to get a mortgage modification on a rental property than it is on an owner occupied property. The rules are not as clear.

You need a higher income to qualify for a rental modification because you have to be able to cover your home mortgage.

Nevertheless, persistence pays.

This young couple went from an adjustable interest rate to a fixed rate of 2.54% for five years followed by a fixed rate of 4.5% for the balance of the loan.

Ocwen and its investor turned this modification down repeatedly. However, we kept reapplying and reapplying. The problem was that the borrowers were self-employed, although they wrote paychecks to themselves. Ocwen continued to add profit plus paychecks, effectively doubling the borrowers’ income. After much persistence and escalation of the file, we were able to get to someone who understood how to read a profit and loss statement.

It is an in-house modification. The rate and payment level were low because the loan was adjustable. So the modification did not produce a mortgage payment that was at least 10% below the current payment. For that reason a Making Home Affordable modification was not available.